


The Arc of Conflict, Fragment e15,2: The woman with with a hint of fire in her eyes

by bzarcher, solarbird



Series: Of Gods and Monsters [95]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Boats and Ships, Conversations, Gen, Genetic Engineering, Genetically Engineered Beings, Gods, Identity, Identity Issues, Oasis (Overwatch), Omnic Racism, Other, Post-Omnic Crisis, Self-Discovery, Shipwrecks, South America, Vishkar Corporation, Walkabout
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-30
Updated: 2019-09-30
Packaged: 2020-11-07 21:40:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20824220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bzarcher/pseuds/bzarcher, https://archiveofourown.org/users/solarbird/pseuds/solarbird
Summary: Katya Volskaya's government in Russia has destroyed the omnium Koschei, and held their own against the Gods of Oasis. With no point to additional fighting, the overt war has paused. But covertly, the conflict carries on. The gods, after all, still have a plan, and will do what is needed - one way, or another.Zarya has made her way further south, heading towards the southernmost parts of South America, where she will eventually catch transport to Antarctica. She has discovered that the world away from Russia is already changing more than she knew - but she is not the only one who has started to notice.Of Gods and Monsters: The Arc of Conflictis a continuance ofThe Arc of Ascension,The Arc of Creation, andThe Armourer and the Living Weapon. To follow the story as it appears,please subscribe to the series.





	The Arc of Conflict, Fragment e15,2: The woman with with a hint of fire in her eyes

**Author's Note:**

> dirtyclaws has launched [a public fan-run _Of Gods and Monsters_ discord server](https://discord.gg/pDZMpVT) and invites everyone to come join it. ^_^

_[All dialogue is translated from the Spanish, except for Zarya's thoughts, which are translated from the Russian.]_

"I'm telling you," the woman said, "they're _doing_ things to people. Changing them."

Zarya sat, listening, to the woman outside the ferry dock, where they both waited, already in shade as the sun settled invisibly past the mountains behind them.

She'd thought, a little, about swimming the distance across the strait, camping on one of the midway islands overnight, but it was late enough in the day that she'd decided against it. It was getting dark, and she might get hit by a boat, and, well, that would be unfortunate.

For the boat.

"I can't get many people to believe me in my parish. A few. But not many. And not Father Martinez - though at least he listens." She snorted. "I suppose he thinks he has to humour me, with all the money we've given over the years."

Zarya nodded, listening, as the woman checked her phone. A message board, on some server, somewhere, apparently more receptive than her local friends. She grumbled, at a message someone had left, muttering something like _lurk moar, n00b_, before typing a response.

"I don't know what they're doing. How the hell should I?" She muttered aloud as she typed. "I don't know what the plan is. But you can't deny it. People go in to those clinics - they even just move in to one of those damned Vishkar developments - and they come out _different_."

"What do you mean," Zarya couldn't help but ask, "'different'?"

The woman jumped, startled, glaring at the Russian.

"I'm sorry, you were speaking aloud, I did not mean to..."

"Like you don't know!" the older woman interjected. "Look at those muscles - you're one of them, aren't you?"

The angry woman with the piercing gaze looked into the eyes of the world's strongest person. She frowned, and then lurched closer - Zarya did not flinch - to look again, more carefully.

"Or maybe not," she muttered, slumping back to her side of the bench. "The way you move is creepy, like one of them... but they don't need contact lenses. Ever."

"They don't?" the goddess asked, a little amused despite herself.

"No. Perfect vision. All of them." She shuddered. "Worse. It's like they look _through_ you. It's fundamentally _not right_."

The woman puttered some more with her phone. "I thought the damned omnics were bad until I started seeing _them_."

Zarya found herself unexpectedly disquieted by that. "Not ... all the omnics... are so bad."

"After what they did? They _are_. Besides, how the hell would you know?" She gave the pink-haired woman a dismissive glance.

"I was in the army. I fought them, in Siberia."

"Siberia?!" She thought a moment. "...you're Russian?"

"I am," Zarya replied. At least of that much, she was still certain.

"...huh." The woman nodded, thinking a minute, looking towards the sea.

"At least your country has the right idea where those... _things..._ are concerned." She shook her head. "I don't care if they used Talon to do it - and they obviously did, don't argue with me - I'm just glad that _evil_ is gone."

"The omnium, you mean."

"Of course that's what I mean!" she snapped.

"Yes. I am... also glad it is gone."

"It's not enough, though. Oasis is in bed with Vishkar, and just as bad. It's just a shame your mercenaries didn't keep going. Should've wiped them all out while you had the chance."

"Them?"

"Oasis!"

Zarya frowned, sharply, surprised at her own surge of anger. "The people of Oasis are people! Humans, like ourselves!" And she found herself pleased that she did not hesitate to say it.

"No," the woman said, voice dark. "They _aren't._"

\-----

Zarya felt, as much as heard, the grinding of the hull against... whatever it was. She felt, as much as heard, the tell-tale shuddering of metal being rendered, torn, pulled aside, and as the emergency-stations alarms sounded, she found herself responding in full military readiness, charging up the stairs to the top deck, seeing the hulking remains of an Omnic War-era submersible, wrecked and idle, but still dangerous.

"Popped out of the seafloor, we think," one of the crew said, herding people towards lifeboat stations. "It's a wonder we aren't sunk, but we're still afloat, no need for panic."

_Afloat_, she thought, heading towards the cluster of crew looking at the wreckage, _but with a tilt._

"How the hell," the engineer wondered aloud, as Zarya walked up beside her. "How. the. hell."

"ZSM-429," Zarya offered. "Automatic ballast control. If it was anchored, or buried, and something disturbed it - it could float upwards, passively, very quickly. Was part of design, to avoid detection - and launch one last attack, if disabled."

"Excuse me?" the engineer blinked, turning towards the Russian.

"Electromagnetic attractors, as well. Perhaps a residual charge."

"_Excuse me?!_" she said again, trying to keep up.

Zarya allowed herself a rueful smile. _At least it didn't have an armed explosive payload._ "I know these, from my country, in the war. I wasn't in the Navy, but we all knew all of them."

"...I see."

"We are sinking, yes?"

"Yes. It is, too. Right now, I think it's the only thing holding us up. But it's sinking faster than we are, and we have quite the hole in the hull." She shook her head. "We'll need to get to lifeboats soon, at this rate." She turned, and called down the deck. "Purser! Make sure everyone's at stations and prepare for offboarding."

The young man nodded, and ran off to his task.

"So, the ship is... rended?" She thought back to the attack systems of the naval omnic, how the shape of its physical weaponry - no doubt the only portion still working - bent hulls open, breaching in both directions.

"Yes. You really do know these things."

Zarya just nodded. "If the hull plating were bent back, closer to shape, could you get ahead of it with the pumps?"

"If it were..." The engineer almost managed to laugh. "What, just... bend the hull back? Here? The bloody hull?"

"Yes," Zarya nodded. "Could the pumps get ahead of it?"

"Sure," she said, throwing her hands in the air. "And if angels came out of the sky and lifted the boat out of the... _what are you doing?!_"

Zarya had already thrown off her boots - she didn't need to, she just liked them - before taking a deep breath, and diving into the frigid waters. Following the flow down to the hull damage was simple - the lights, and the pull, guided her into the damaged section.

She tested the shape and the feel of the metal, and the pushback from the sea, braced herself against the undamaged section of the frame, and began to pull, carefully, one section at a time, minding the worst of the damage, reducing the size of the gap, one piece at a time, as the dead omnic slowly fell away.

Five minutes in, the first diver caught up with her, and saw what she was doing.

Eight minutes in, a second diver appeared, with a welding kit, and began to seal the crack behind her, strengthening her work.

Twenty minutes in, she finally surfaced, letting out a massive gasp for air, and a second, and a third, and a fourth, reoxiginating her blood, as the engineer and the captain stared.

"How?" she asked, one word per breath, "are. We. Doing."

"How are _you_ doing _that?!_"

Zarya snorted, again, her garnet eyes flashing with humour as her system caught up with the renewed supply of oxygen, the contact lenses lost to the sea. "I lift. A lot. But. Well. How are. We doing?"

"The pumps are pulling ahead," the engineer managed, quietly. "Can you... keep doing what you were doing?"

"Absolutely. Another minute. I will go back down."

"Is there... anything... we can do to help?"

She nodded vigorously. "More welders."

"No one else is certified for underwater, but we can work from the inside, soon, and an aid ship is on the way. Other than that."

"Dinner," she said, grinning. "When job is finished. _Lots_ of dinner. I will eat like Siberian bear."

"Done!"

\-----

"I was right," the woman from the dock said, a snarl hiding under her restrained voice. "You _are_ one of them. Only worse."

"Excuse me?" Zarya asked, distracted from watching the passengers slowly evacuate to the rescue ship. It was one thing, after all, to keep a badly wounded ship afloat; it was another entirely to run it under power with civilians on board.

She'd been happy to agree to stay until the ship could be towed to harbour safely, just in case. And the promise of a second, even better dinner hadn't hurt anything either. The entire crew wanted to celebrate, and, well, she wasn't about to turn down a good night out.

She'd even started to relax, a bit, at last. Started to feel a little bit more... normal, despite the heroics of it all.

_Or maybe_, she admitted to herself, _that is why._ But now, there was... this, unexpected, and angry.

"One of _them_," the woman spat, meeting the goddess's green-eyed gaze with her own. "Are you what they're going to make of all of us?"

Zarya didn't like the sound of that at all. "You should be on the rescue craft, with the others. Go."

"'Saved the ship,'" she muttered, sarcasm unmuted in her tone. "You called that monster here, didn't you. Some sort of, what. Test? Demonstration?"

"No!" Zarya replied, dismay crossing her face. "What are you..."

"You can't fool us. Not forever. People will notice. People will _learn_."

"You are _quite_ mad," Zarya said, wishing she were more convinced of that. "Please go away," She waved one of the rescue crew over, gesturing at the woman.

"Gladly," she snapped, as one of the aid crew walked up behind her. "Anything to get away from the likes of _you_. But this won't last forever, you know. We'll figure it out, and we'll _fight_ you. All of us. Just like the Russians."

"_I_ am Russian."

"No," she said, her eyes narrowed, her voice low. "You're _not_."

**Author's Note:**

> This is the twenty-fourth instalment of _Of Gods and Monsters: The Arc of Conflict_. To follow the story, [subscribe to the series via this link](https://archiveofourown.org/series/972024), rather than to the individual works.


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